There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net?

Whenever I hear this, I don't think about content like music and movies. I think about specifications, RFCs and protocols (etc etc etc) and most news falls into this category, but if you provide more than just news, ie investigate reporting etc, then it doesn't apply for that. The important things that are almost required to be free and open for all, for interoperabilities sake and to keep people informed about what is happening. After all, it's pretty nice to not having to pay to know there's an election coming up, or that your hospital is being moved.

Content like interviews, music and whatnot doesn't fall into this free and open category imho. They can be free if the producers so chooses, but doesn't have to and I don't expect it to be. Wonder how the porn industry has changed over time. How many provided subscriptions 10-15 years ago compared to today?